Anticipatory Joy

 

Lupine at my favorite local nursery

I recently attended a lecture given by a nurse at our local teaching hospital. If anyone is qualified to talk about stress and tips for coping, it's healthcare staff. She told us that anticipatory joy is what gets her through long, emotionally difficult shifts. 

Anticipatory joy is defined in the linked article as "the in-the-moment pleasure experienced when imagining a future event". Through anticipatory joy "We can find joy in the present through luscious ruminations over wonderful things to come. Anticipatory joy can bring light to the dreary present."

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In Seattle, our first week of May saw more rain than we normally get in a month. My husband joked that we'd need a boating license to get to the post office. It was wet and so very dreary. Every soggy day I looked forward to that first trip of the year to my favorite nursery. 

Photo by Oriol Portell on Unsplash

On the long-awaited day the skies even cleared as I searched for herb and vegetable starts on the list I'd curated over the winter. It's still too cold to plant the honeydew melons that I most anticipate, but I've got them started indoors and have pored over tips to help me have a successful crop.
 

Another joy awaiting me this month is an online class "Tending Your Medicinal Garden". While I'm wildly successful with the many herbs I grow, I'm eager to learn about the healing benefits of native plants and which ones I might add to the garden. Or maybe I can seek them out in the yard, thinking once that they were only weeds.

 

The heavy clouds that are soaking us this month have one silver lining-- the mountain snowpack has raised from 80% of normal to 126%. I expect a hot summer if climate change continues our dry spells and will be grateful for the snow and rains. Soon, I look forward to a few days off to spend in the yard and garden. Until then, like the wild bunny in our backyard, I eagerly await the first fruit of the season, strawberries.